1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for providing authentication within computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus that provides end-to-end identity propagation to support access to computer applications.
2. Related Art
Existing computer systems provide user authentication in a point-to-point fashion. As principals (users or servers) access different computer systems, or as application services access other services in the user's behalf, the secure flow of identity can be lost. This is particularly true in web-based and enterprise computing environments where an end-user accesses multiple application services, which in turn access other services on behalf of the user. Existing systems suffer from the problem that there is no centralized trust model. Consequently, it is possible for an application service to impersonate a user, which gives rise to potential security problems.
Some systems provide a single sign-on (SSO) service that can be used as a single point of authentication for partner applications, and can thereby facilitate end-to-end authentication for the partner applications. In these systems, partner applications can receive user authentication through a token issued by the SSO server. These partner applications can, in turn, access other partner applications using the SSO token, thereby maintaining the end-to-end authentication, and providing a centralized trust model.
Unfortunately, even if an SSO service exists within a computer system, applications that are not SSO-enabled and third-party applications, such as web-based applications, still have a fragmented trust model. Some applications that are not SSO-enabled, for example a relational database management system (RDBMS), can provide authentication based on user identities in a number of ways. Users may be defined locally to an RDBMS instance. Users may be authenticated by an external repository, such as a Kerberos system, a remote authentication dial-in user service (RADIUS), or a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) service. Additionally, enterprise users may be authenticated using the public key infrastructure (PKI) or may be password authenticated. While these methods each have advantages, they do not provide a centralized trust model and consequently have security problems.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus that provides end-to-end identity propagation across multiple layers of computer applications with a heterogeneous technology stack without the problems described above.